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How Japan Saw Us

By

Lee Lawrence

Updated Oct. 21, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

Philadelphia

After a 200-year period during which Japan kept contact with foreigners to a minimum, treaties in 1858 with the U.S., Holland, France, Britain and Russia ushered in dramatic changes. One of these changes transformed the quiet fishing village of Yokohama into a bustling port with a population of some 100,000 people. So while artists in 1860s Paris were discovering the beauty of Japanese "floating world"—or ukiyo-e—woodblock prints, many Japanese artists were heading to Yokohama, scouring European publications...